Thu Thiem Heats Up: Lotte Eco Smart City Breaks Ground as HCMC Finalizes Record Land Auction

In under three weeks, Thu Thiem has delivered two headline-grabbing events. The 1.43-billion-USD Lotte Eco Smart City Thu Thiem officially broke ground, and Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Committee issued a formal decision to auction five “golden” land plots together with 3,790 resettlement apartments inside the new Thu Thiem urban area. The two events are different in nature, yet they point to the same trend: buildable land in the Thu Thiem core keeps getting scarcer, and pricing in the district remains anchored near the top of the HCMC market.

Lotte Eco Smart City officially breaks ground

On the morning of 23 October 2026, Lotte (through Lotte Shopping, Hotel Lotte and Lotte E&C) and Phat Dat (HoSE: PDR) held a groundbreaking ceremony in functional zone 2A of the Thu Thiem New Urban Area, An Khanh ward. The site covers roughly 7.45 hectares, with total investment of about VND 60,000 billion, equivalent to roughly USD 1.4 billion. The developers describe it as a multifunctional complex combining finance, commerce, services and residential space tied into the district’s infrastructure.

On ownership, Phat Dat now holds 35% of Lotte Properties HCMC Co., Ltd, the project entity, with Lotte’s subsidiaries holding the rest – one of the rare cases of a Vietnamese company buying into a large foreign-linked project in Thu Thiem. Phat Dat is developing the entirety of blocks 2-1 and 2-3 (a commercial-service-office component spanning roughly 219,722 sqm of floor area) and is also involved in developing the residential portions of blocks 2-2, 2-4 and 2-6, with construction expected to take about 36 months. HCMC Vice Chairman Nguyen Cong Vinh said at the ceremony that the project fits the city’s plan to turn Thu Thiem into a financial, commercial and innovation hub, and that its capital will contribute to HCMC’s 2026 target of attracting USD 19 billion in FDI.

Thu Thiem keeps heating up: a new benchmark price for golden land

Almost in parallel, the HCMC People’s Committee issued a decision to auction land-use rights and attached assets on five plots coded R1 through R5 inside the Binh Khanh resettlement zone, An Khanh ward – the site of the 3,790 vacant resettlement apartments that have sat empty for years. Based on October 2026 price levels, the combined starting price for the land and these apartments alone is over VND 18,253 billion; adding the other Thu Thiem plots already covered by earlier auction decisions brings the total starting price expected to go to auction in November 2026 to roughly VND 34,263 billion.

Notably, this is the fifth time the city has tried to auction this specific apartment stock, after four previous attempts failed, with the starting price as low as VND 8,800 billion back in 2017. The full history of how the starting prices for Thu Thiem’s golden land plots were approved step by step has been covered in our earlier reporting, for readers who want the detailed, stage-by-stage figures.

Why these two milestones keep pushing Thu Thiem’s luxury prices higher

According to JLL Vietnam data released in May 2026, primary apartment prices in Thu Thiem were forecast at around VND 215 million per sqm, with landed housing around VND 567 million per sqm – two to three times the level seen in the area’s early development phase. Avison Young, around the same time, noted that new primary supply had been almost nonexistent since early 2026, aside from a handful of launches such as Sarene Residence in the Sala urban area. Both the Lotte Eco Smart City groundbreaking and the official decision to price the resettlement land function as signals reinforcing the value of core Thu Thiem land, from two different angles: a billion-dollar private project moving into actual construction on one side, and an official state valuation of public land on the other.

The infrastructure story is not confined to Thu Thiem alone. Since early 2026, Sun Group has broken ground on the Rach Chiec National Sports Complex, with total investment of more than VND 145,000 billion across a site of over 186.78 hectares, anchored by a 70,000-seat central stadium. Although it is public infrastructure rather than commercial real estate, the project signals that Rach Chiec – the area bordering Thu Thiem to the east – is also being positioned as a new growth pole, adding further support to nearby luxury housing values.

For buyers and investors, projects already under construction or with legal title in the Thu Thiem core – such as Empire City, The Metropole Thu Thiem, or Zeit River (recently renamed Suro Collection Saigon) – remain options with clear legal status and immediate rental or resale potential, while Lotte Eco Smart City belongs to the category of future projects whose legal and construction progress will need close monitoring over the next few years.

A buyer’s perspective: opportunity alongside due diligence

Scarce primary supply, combined with continued demand from financially strong buyers – domestic investors, business owners, and foreign executives at FDI companies – is the main reason Thu Thiem prices are unlikely to fall in the short term. That said, for a project only just breaking ground, such as Lotte Eco Smart City, buyers should prioritise tracking the actual legal and construction progress and the developer’s execution capacity before committing capital, rather than relying solely on price-appreciation expectations. The outcome of the upcoming resettlement-land auction will also serve as an important reference point for land valuation in the area going forward. Readers weighing an apartment or townhouse in Thu Thiem, District 1, Rach Chiec or Thao Dien may also find it useful to review our price comparison of luxury apartments across Thu Thiem, Rach Chiec and District 1 before deciding.

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Thu Thiem’s luxury real estate market is entering a phase where both private infrastructure investment and official public-land valuation are confirming the same trend: values in this district are unlikely to reverse course in the medium term. If you are exploring projects in Thu Thiem, District 1, Rach Chiec or Thao Dien and need detailed advice on legal status, construction progress, or pricing suited to your own end-use or investment goals, feel free to reach out for project-specific guidance.

Sources:

• znews.vn – “Lotte Eco Smart City Thu Thiem’s USD 1.4 billion super-project breaks ground” (23 Oct 2026)
• phatdat.com.vn – Groundbreaking announcement for blocks 2-1 and 2-3 (21 Sep 2026, updated 23 Oct 2026)
• vietbao.vn – “Auctioning 5 ‘golden’ land plots and 3,790 apartments in Thu Thiem” (5 Nov 2026)
• congly.vn – “HCMC to auction 3,790 apartments in Thu Thiem” (6 Nov 2026)
• vietnamfinance.vn – “Thu Thiem housing prices rise: apartments at VND 215 million/sqm…” (24 May 2026)
• thitruongtaichinhtiente.vn – “Sun Group to invest in a sports complex worth over VND 145,000 billion in Ho Chi Minh City” (15 Jan 2026)